Published in Interface Tech News
LOWELL, Mass. ‹ NetNumber recently drew a $15 million infusion from Mountain View, Calif.-based VeriSign and Science Applications International Corporation's venture capital subsidiary, SAIC Venture Capital Corp., located in Las Vegas, Nev.
NetNumber is betting the injection of cash will enable continued expansion of its e-numbering services for voice-over-IP (VoIP) providers.
E-numbering translates international-standard phone numbers into IP addresses for connecting with IP phones, according to NetNumber CEO Glenn Marschel. He said the company will use the money for general operations and expansion of its marketing efforts.
At present, the company has one client, Webley Communications of Deerfield, Ill., and between 12 and 20 companies working to incorporate NetNumber's products, Marschel said.
An IDC report in late August stated that the recent economic downturn will "slow but not stall" the trend toward adopting VoIP technology. The report confirmed that several companies in the VoIP sector have also received additional rounds of venture capital funding.
Marschel said VeriSign and Science Applications had previously announced their intentions to compete with one another. He attributed the new collaboration to the firms' work together on standards and regulatory issues.
Friday, October 5, 2001
Thursday, October 4, 2001
New home for Cape Police takes shape
Published in the Current
The Cape Elizabeth Police Department’s new home is taking shape and should be enclosed by winter, Chief Neil Williams said.
The new building, on the site of the old police and fire station on Ocean House Road in the town center, will have 9,300 square feet of space. That is roughly the same
size as the old building, but with the fire department in its new station across Jordan Way, “We’re going to have it all to ourselves,” Williams said.
Williams said the decision to build a new station, rather than renovate the old one, was a matter of bringing that structure into compliance with current building codes, including the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“The corridors and ramps that they were going to have to put in were going to need a lot more space,” Williams said.
The town invited bids to raze the police station, and build a new fire station and a new police station, as one project, for a total of $2.5 million, Williams said.
The new station will not only be built on one level for easy access, but also will have an appealing entrance area, including a small courtyard between the road and the building.
“It’s going to be more customer service focused,” Williams said, describing the dispatch area, with its split desk so people entering the station can speak face-to-face with a dispatcher or other officer.
The officers also will have better space, with stronger security and more computers and office space, as well as better space for processing witnesses and suspects.
“We will have a larger hold-down area,” Williams said.
Other amenities will make the building more welcoming to officers and members of the public alike, Williams said. The building will be air-conditioned, and there will be a conference room for police meetings as well as community use.
“We’re all looking forward to it,” Williams said.
The Cape police department also is working with the FBI, as are most U.S. police departments, to investigate the events leading up to the attacks on Sept. 11 in New York and Washington, D.C. Williams said.
The Cape Elizabeth Police Department’s new home is taking shape and should be enclosed by winter, Chief Neil Williams said.
The new building, on the site of the old police and fire station on Ocean House Road in the town center, will have 9,300 square feet of space. That is roughly the same
size as the old building, but with the fire department in its new station across Jordan Way, “We’re going to have it all to ourselves,” Williams said.
Williams said the decision to build a new station, rather than renovate the old one, was a matter of bringing that structure into compliance with current building codes, including the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“The corridors and ramps that they were going to have to put in were going to need a lot more space,” Williams said.
The town invited bids to raze the police station, and build a new fire station and a new police station, as one project, for a total of $2.5 million, Williams said.
The new station will not only be built on one level for easy access, but also will have an appealing entrance area, including a small courtyard between the road and the building.
“It’s going to be more customer service focused,” Williams said, describing the dispatch area, with its split desk so people entering the station can speak face-to-face with a dispatcher or other officer.
The officers also will have better space, with stronger security and more computers and office space, as well as better space for processing witnesses and suspects.
“We will have a larger hold-down area,” Williams said.
Other amenities will make the building more welcoming to officers and members of the public alike, Williams said. The building will be air-conditioned, and there will be a conference room for police meetings as well as community use.
“We’re all looking forward to it,” Williams said.
The Cape police department also is working with the FBI, as are most U.S. police departments, to investigate the events leading up to the attacks on Sept. 11 in New York and Washington, D.C. Williams said.
Villages of Scarborough: Pine Point - Village by the sea weathers change
Published in the Current
Pine Point is a village in balance, filled with the quiet tension between the land and the sea, inhabited by people who come and go with the tides and the seasons.
Lobstering and clamming have long been livelihoods in Pine Point. But for 120 years, tourism has been the business to be in, if you live in the Point. And now that’s changing too, as houses are rebuilt or winterized, ready for year-round residents.
And still, they that go down to the sea in boats are all around Pine Point. They’re a quiet lot, prone to pointing at their friends when you ask a question, but they’re personable enough, even friendly, if you aren’t too obvious about being from away.
Most of today’s lobstermen don’t live in Pine Point, though their forefathers, and even their fathers, did.
It has become “a nice place to live,” and property values are through the roof.
“They priced us out of here,” said lobsterman Robbie Lothrop. Born and brought up on the sandbar called Pine Point, he now lives “on the hill,” across the mouth of Jones Creek, and rents his house out on the Point.
His 50-by-70-foot lot, where the house takes up nearly all the land, has some pretty steep property taxes, he said. “The taxes on that are three grand.”
His Cape-style house on three-quarters of an acre on the hill has just about the same taxes. Many lobstermen have found the same situation.
“Most of us are up on the hill,” Lothrop said. He doesn’t think there are any working lobstermen who still live on the Point.
In his 57 years, 40 of which he has spent lobstering, he has seen a lot of changes. He points at a parking lot filled with sea gulls and a row of houses behind them.
“That was all sand dunes,” he said, remembering the ditches he and his friends used to play in among the sandy hillocks where the lot is now. Drawing a big circle with his hands, he shows where a tide pool once was.
Wind can’t blow people away
Bill Bayley is another Pine Point resident, who has been, he said, “lucky enough to get to stay” as many of his neighbors left for more affordable areas. He is the third generation of his family to run Bayley’s Lobster Pound, and his daughter works with him.
“We’ve been selling seafood on this location — the same family — for 86 or 87 years,” he said.
His grandfather came to Pine Point in 1915 with his wife and infant son, Bill’s father. The young family had been looking for a place to settle near the sea. From the train, Bill’s grandfather saw the spit of land and decided to live there.
Back then, it wasn’t the nice place to live it has become. Separated from the mainland by the marsh and the creek until the 1880s, it wasn’t exactly prime real estate even in the early 20th century . When the trains came by in the 1850s, the railroad company had to build a road out to the Point. Almost immediately it became a summer resort. But people who spent the winter were still scarce.
The wind was the problem. Ripping out of the north in winter, it was known to tear roofs apart and make life generally miserable. The wind hasn’t changed, but people now stay the winter with better shelter, Bayley said.
“They didn’t have the types of houses they have now,” he said. But the wind still blows, and though the year-rounders love the summer, Bayley said, “We pay for it in the winter.”
Bayley had thought his third-generation link was as far back as his family went in Pine Point, but when looking over old photos and family records, he learned that his grandfather’s grandfather was from Pine Point, and had lived right in the house still standing next door to the Lobster Pound.
It was a surprise to Bayley: “One of the first houses built down here is right in the parking lot.”
Bayley, like Lothrop, said economics have played a role in changing the community.
“A lot of the people that were native to this place have had to leave,” Bayley said, citing costs of housing and property taxes. But now the seasonal folks are staying longer and even moving to the Point.
“It’s not so much summer people,” Bayley said. And even the summer influx is different from the seasonal invasions other Maine coastal communities see.
“A lot of our folks aren’t quite tourists,” Bayley said. “Families have been coming here for generations and generations, and not just one or two.”
“New arrivals” not new
Mary Boutin is one of those seasonal visitors. She’s been coming to the Point since she was six months old; she’s now in her early 80s and lives both in Pine Point — Pillsbury Shores, to be exact — and in Lewiston.
The Pillsbury Shores neighborhood is friendly and low-key, too, but since homes were built on sea grass, there have been changes, too.
The days of unlocked doors, while mostly over, aren’t too far gone.
“Everybody has a key to everybody else’s house,” Boutin said. “It’s very close-knit down here.”
Talking to folks in Pine Point, whether they’re life-long residents, seasonal visitors or relative newcomers, it’s clear that everyone is related to somebody else who has, or had, a house down here. Explaining who a neighbor is involves a crash course in local genealogy.
Those ties are part of why things change slowly here. Old sand footpaths are closed by new owners, who realize over time that they can’t keep the fishermen and beachgoers
from using the only route to the beach they’ve ever known.
The sea changes things too, moving sandbars and waterlines, allowing
dune grass to grow.
“It’s amazing how much the sand has grown up in sea grasses,” Boutin said.
Houses have changed, too. People buy homes and expand them or even tear them down to build anew.
“I would love to see the houses retain what I think is the character of ‘by the seashore,’” Boutin said. “(Now) we have these very palatial places.”
Some of the house turnovers are estate sales, by children selling their parents’ former home. The next generation, Boutin said, sometimes thinks “it’s better to have the money than the responsibility.”
Another big change is how people communicate on the Point. It used to be kids yelling back and forth, or a few minutes of walking back to the house. Now beachgoers, especially parents, have two-way radios and cellular phones to keep tabs on things back at the house.
But all told, whether it’s partying on a sandbar or sitting outside on a summer’s evening listening to poetry read aloud by a friend, “We’re very happy down in this neck of the woods,” Boutin said. “We have a wonderful life down here.”
Expanding the village
But what qualifies as “down here,” to folks who live on the Point, has changed too.
“Pine Point was from here to the corner,” Bayley said, standing inside his business. “Up above the corner was Grand Beach. Across the marsh and up the hill was Blue Point.”
Now there’s a Pine Point Nursing Home on Pine Point Road, long before any signs saying “Blue Point.” But Pine Point hasn’t grown too much. It’s moved through the roundabout, what Bayley called “the corner” and up to the bridge over the
railroad tracks. And the stretch that was called Grand Beach, over to the Old Orchard Beach town line, is part of Pine Point now too. But the heart of Pine Point is still the sandy spit between Pillsbury Shores and the corner.
The old gathering place, Conroy’s Garage, has ceased to play its central role in the village, since the death of its owner, Jack Conroy, Bayley said.
“We were really a small, tight-knit community for years,” Bayley said, talking of knowing everyone in town and being able to walk into any house — they were all unlocked.
“Now it’s changed quite a bit.”
There aren’t that many kids around now, either, he said. “There are a few, but not like there used to be.”
The folks who move away don’t go far, Bayley said. “They’re all trying to stay where they can at least see it. It’s kind of difficult to move away.”
And even if it’s hard to move away, those property values have made it hard to stay.
“There’s more people all the time and there’s only just so much land on the water,” Bayley said.
Balance is important between the forces at work in Pine Point, the natives and the newcomers, the sea and the land, and even the wind and the buildings.
But nothing is permanent, Bayley said, especially on a small strip of sand sticking into the ocean.
“You can’t own it; you can only borrow it.”
Pine Point is a village in balance, filled with the quiet tension between the land and the sea, inhabited by people who come and go with the tides and the seasons.
Lobstering and clamming have long been livelihoods in Pine Point. But for 120 years, tourism has been the business to be in, if you live in the Point. And now that’s changing too, as houses are rebuilt or winterized, ready for year-round residents.
And still, they that go down to the sea in boats are all around Pine Point. They’re a quiet lot, prone to pointing at their friends when you ask a question, but they’re personable enough, even friendly, if you aren’t too obvious about being from away.
Most of today’s lobstermen don’t live in Pine Point, though their forefathers, and even their fathers, did.
It has become “a nice place to live,” and property values are through the roof.
“They priced us out of here,” said lobsterman Robbie Lothrop. Born and brought up on the sandbar called Pine Point, he now lives “on the hill,” across the mouth of Jones Creek, and rents his house out on the Point.
His 50-by-70-foot lot, where the house takes up nearly all the land, has some pretty steep property taxes, he said. “The taxes on that are three grand.”
His Cape-style house on three-quarters of an acre on the hill has just about the same taxes. Many lobstermen have found the same situation.
“Most of us are up on the hill,” Lothrop said. He doesn’t think there are any working lobstermen who still live on the Point.
In his 57 years, 40 of which he has spent lobstering, he has seen a lot of changes. He points at a parking lot filled with sea gulls and a row of houses behind them.
“That was all sand dunes,” he said, remembering the ditches he and his friends used to play in among the sandy hillocks where the lot is now. Drawing a big circle with his hands, he shows where a tide pool once was.
Wind can’t blow people away
Bill Bayley is another Pine Point resident, who has been, he said, “lucky enough to get to stay” as many of his neighbors left for more affordable areas. He is the third generation of his family to run Bayley’s Lobster Pound, and his daughter works with him.
“We’ve been selling seafood on this location — the same family — for 86 or 87 years,” he said.
His grandfather came to Pine Point in 1915 with his wife and infant son, Bill’s father. The young family had been looking for a place to settle near the sea. From the train, Bill’s grandfather saw the spit of land and decided to live there.
Back then, it wasn’t the nice place to live it has become. Separated from the mainland by the marsh and the creek until the 1880s, it wasn’t exactly prime real estate even in the early 20th century . When the trains came by in the 1850s, the railroad company had to build a road out to the Point. Almost immediately it became a summer resort. But people who spent the winter were still scarce.
The wind was the problem. Ripping out of the north in winter, it was known to tear roofs apart and make life generally miserable. The wind hasn’t changed, but people now stay the winter with better shelter, Bayley said.
“They didn’t have the types of houses they have now,” he said. But the wind still blows, and though the year-rounders love the summer, Bayley said, “We pay for it in the winter.”
Bayley had thought his third-generation link was as far back as his family went in Pine Point, but when looking over old photos and family records, he learned that his grandfather’s grandfather was from Pine Point, and had lived right in the house still standing next door to the Lobster Pound.
It was a surprise to Bayley: “One of the first houses built down here is right in the parking lot.”
Bayley, like Lothrop, said economics have played a role in changing the community.
“A lot of the people that were native to this place have had to leave,” Bayley said, citing costs of housing and property taxes. But now the seasonal folks are staying longer and even moving to the Point.
“It’s not so much summer people,” Bayley said. And even the summer influx is different from the seasonal invasions other Maine coastal communities see.
“A lot of our folks aren’t quite tourists,” Bayley said. “Families have been coming here for generations and generations, and not just one or two.”
“New arrivals” not new
Mary Boutin is one of those seasonal visitors. She’s been coming to the Point since she was six months old; she’s now in her early 80s and lives both in Pine Point — Pillsbury Shores, to be exact — and in Lewiston.
The Pillsbury Shores neighborhood is friendly and low-key, too, but since homes were built on sea grass, there have been changes, too.
The days of unlocked doors, while mostly over, aren’t too far gone.
“Everybody has a key to everybody else’s house,” Boutin said. “It’s very close-knit down here.”
Talking to folks in Pine Point, whether they’re life-long residents, seasonal visitors or relative newcomers, it’s clear that everyone is related to somebody else who has, or had, a house down here. Explaining who a neighbor is involves a crash course in local genealogy.
Those ties are part of why things change slowly here. Old sand footpaths are closed by new owners, who realize over time that they can’t keep the fishermen and beachgoers
from using the only route to the beach they’ve ever known.
The sea changes things too, moving sandbars and waterlines, allowing
dune grass to grow.
“It’s amazing how much the sand has grown up in sea grasses,” Boutin said.
Houses have changed, too. People buy homes and expand them or even tear them down to build anew.
“I would love to see the houses retain what I think is the character of ‘by the seashore,’” Boutin said. “(Now) we have these very palatial places.”
Some of the house turnovers are estate sales, by children selling their parents’ former home. The next generation, Boutin said, sometimes thinks “it’s better to have the money than the responsibility.”
Another big change is how people communicate on the Point. It used to be kids yelling back and forth, or a few minutes of walking back to the house. Now beachgoers, especially parents, have two-way radios and cellular phones to keep tabs on things back at the house.
But all told, whether it’s partying on a sandbar or sitting outside on a summer’s evening listening to poetry read aloud by a friend, “We’re very happy down in this neck of the woods,” Boutin said. “We have a wonderful life down here.”
Expanding the village
But what qualifies as “down here,” to folks who live on the Point, has changed too.
“Pine Point was from here to the corner,” Bayley said, standing inside his business. “Up above the corner was Grand Beach. Across the marsh and up the hill was Blue Point.”
Now there’s a Pine Point Nursing Home on Pine Point Road, long before any signs saying “Blue Point.” But Pine Point hasn’t grown too much. It’s moved through the roundabout, what Bayley called “the corner” and up to the bridge over the
railroad tracks. And the stretch that was called Grand Beach, over to the Old Orchard Beach town line, is part of Pine Point now too. But the heart of Pine Point is still the sandy spit between Pillsbury Shores and the corner.
The old gathering place, Conroy’s Garage, has ceased to play its central role in the village, since the death of its owner, Jack Conroy, Bayley said.
“We were really a small, tight-knit community for years,” Bayley said, talking of knowing everyone in town and being able to walk into any house — they were all unlocked.
“Now it’s changed quite a bit.”
There aren’t that many kids around now, either, he said. “There are a few, but not like there used to be.”
The folks who move away don’t go far, Bayley said. “They’re all trying to stay where they can at least see it. It’s kind of difficult to move away.”
And even if it’s hard to move away, those property values have made it hard to stay.
“There’s more people all the time and there’s only just so much land on the water,” Bayley said.
Balance is important between the forces at work in Pine Point, the natives and the newcomers, the sea and the land, and even the wind and the buildings.
But nothing is permanent, Bayley said, especially on a small strip of sand sticking into the ocean.
“You can’t own it; you can only borrow it.”
Cape housing prices stay strong
Published in the Current
In Cape Elizabeth, land values are often nearly double the national average. And despite national economic shakiness even before Sept. 11, the town’s real estate market is more than holding its own.
In 1990, the median price of a home in Maine was $87,400, according to the U.S. Census, and Cape Elizabeth’s median price was more than twice that, at $168,500.
Town-level details are not yet available from the U.S. Census Bureau for the year 2000, but local realtors say Cape Elizabeth’s average house-closing price is $309,713.
“I think the world stood still for a couple of days (after Sept. 11),” said Tom Tinsman of the ERA 1 Agency office in Cape Elizabeth, “but after that the normal amount of interest has come out.”
While there isn’t much for sale in town, that’s mainly because what there is moves quickly, said Kathy Duca of Harnden Beecher Coldwell Banker’s Cape Elizabeth office.
Buyers and sellers are from a broad mix of people, with locals moving around, people moving from out of state and more people working from home. Cape Elizabeth buyers do have one thing in common, Duca said. Most of them are involved in transactions above $300,000.
With interest rates low and local rental prices high, it is very much a seller’s market.
“There are definitely more buyers than sellers in the marketplace now,” Duca said.
Prices have climbed sharply in the past two years, she said, citing homes which sold in the $200,000-$400,000 range then and are now selling for between $400,000 and $600,000.
The average list price this year for houses in Cape Elizabeth is $306,391, Duca said. But the average closing price is $309,713—$3,322 higher, indicating buyers are meeting if not exceeding asking prices for property.
House showings are frequent, too, Duca said. A house she represented was priced under $200,000. It had 40 showings in one day, resulting in eight offers by evening.
Even so, the average time on the market for Cape houses is 40 days, Duca said. She said sometimes sellers ask for too much. Houses that sold in months rather than days, she said, tended to end up selling far below the original asking price.
But even expensive houses and land are moving quickly, like at Cross Hill.
The 97-lot development off Wells Road has been in progress for the past year and a half. Buyers can purchase land and have a house custom-built.
Half of the lots have sold so far, according to developer and real estate agent Stephen Parkhurst of Re/Max by the Bay in Portland.
Lots are available for between $79,000 and $200,000. The four showcased home designs on the development’s web site all cost over $500,000.
Several homes have been completed and are occupied, while construction on more than a dozen houses is in progress. Some of those homes are nearing completion while other lots are just being cleared.
“Some people are still in the design stage,” Parkhurst said.
Of the 97 lots in the development, five are classified as “affordable housing.” Those lots will have homes built on them before being sold. Parkhurst said the houses
have been designed. Now he and the builders are reviewing the building costs before breaking ground. He admitted that progress is slow, but said things are moving forward.
“We’re not in the infancy stage. We’re more toddlers,” Parkhurst said.
He said he does not know how much he will ask for the houses once they are built, partly because the costs aren’t final yet, and partly because he is not sure what the
county’s median income figures will be when the houses are put on the market.
A spokeswoman at the Maine State Housing Authority said affordable housing guidelines usually stipulate a house-pricing formula based on the median income level in the area.
Parkhurst attributes the demand for housing in Cape Elizabeth to the local character.
“The market is still very healthy,” he said. “It’s a small town.”
Tinsman, however, is worried about the affordability of housing in the community. He said small lots are important for reduction of sprawl. Many lots in town, he said, are mandated to be large.
According to town zoning documents, much of the land in town is subject to zoning requirements that they be no smaller than 1.8 acres.
The World War II-era Cape Cod houses on quarter-acre lots in Elizabeth Park, he said, are a rare breed in Cape Elizabeth.
“It’s the closest thing to affordable housing we have,” Tinsman said, pointing out that now even those are selling for $120,000 to $130,000.
Some houses are purchased only to be torn down, Tinsman said.
Many of these are larger houses, he said.
People who buy the smaller homes don’t typically rebuild because they can only afford to buy at the lower end of the price range, Tinsman said. But even then they
renovate and fix things up in the older houses they buy.
“We see a lot of improvements in homes when they change hands,” Tinsman said.
In Cape Elizabeth, land values are often nearly double the national average. And despite national economic shakiness even before Sept. 11, the town’s real estate market is more than holding its own.
In 1990, the median price of a home in Maine was $87,400, according to the U.S. Census, and Cape Elizabeth’s median price was more than twice that, at $168,500.
Town-level details are not yet available from the U.S. Census Bureau for the year 2000, but local realtors say Cape Elizabeth’s average house-closing price is $309,713.
“I think the world stood still for a couple of days (after Sept. 11),” said Tom Tinsman of the ERA 1 Agency office in Cape Elizabeth, “but after that the normal amount of interest has come out.”
While there isn’t much for sale in town, that’s mainly because what there is moves quickly, said Kathy Duca of Harnden Beecher Coldwell Banker’s Cape Elizabeth office.
Buyers and sellers are from a broad mix of people, with locals moving around, people moving from out of state and more people working from home. Cape Elizabeth buyers do have one thing in common, Duca said. Most of them are involved in transactions above $300,000.
With interest rates low and local rental prices high, it is very much a seller’s market.
“There are definitely more buyers than sellers in the marketplace now,” Duca said.
Prices have climbed sharply in the past two years, she said, citing homes which sold in the $200,000-$400,000 range then and are now selling for between $400,000 and $600,000.
The average list price this year for houses in Cape Elizabeth is $306,391, Duca said. But the average closing price is $309,713—$3,322 higher, indicating buyers are meeting if not exceeding asking prices for property.
House showings are frequent, too, Duca said. A house she represented was priced under $200,000. It had 40 showings in one day, resulting in eight offers by evening.
Even so, the average time on the market for Cape houses is 40 days, Duca said. She said sometimes sellers ask for too much. Houses that sold in months rather than days, she said, tended to end up selling far below the original asking price.
But even expensive houses and land are moving quickly, like at Cross Hill.
The 97-lot development off Wells Road has been in progress for the past year and a half. Buyers can purchase land and have a house custom-built.
Half of the lots have sold so far, according to developer and real estate agent Stephen Parkhurst of Re/Max by the Bay in Portland.
Lots are available for between $79,000 and $200,000. The four showcased home designs on the development’s web site all cost over $500,000.
Several homes have been completed and are occupied, while construction on more than a dozen houses is in progress. Some of those homes are nearing completion while other lots are just being cleared.
“Some people are still in the design stage,” Parkhurst said.
Of the 97 lots in the development, five are classified as “affordable housing.” Those lots will have homes built on them before being sold. Parkhurst said the houses
have been designed. Now he and the builders are reviewing the building costs before breaking ground. He admitted that progress is slow, but said things are moving forward.
“We’re not in the infancy stage. We’re more toddlers,” Parkhurst said.
He said he does not know how much he will ask for the houses once they are built, partly because the costs aren’t final yet, and partly because he is not sure what the
county’s median income figures will be when the houses are put on the market.
A spokeswoman at the Maine State Housing Authority said affordable housing guidelines usually stipulate a house-pricing formula based on the median income level in the area.
Parkhurst attributes the demand for housing in Cape Elizabeth to the local character.
“The market is still very healthy,” he said. “It’s a small town.”
Tinsman, however, is worried about the affordability of housing in the community. He said small lots are important for reduction of sprawl. Many lots in town, he said, are mandated to be large.
According to town zoning documents, much of the land in town is subject to zoning requirements that they be no smaller than 1.8 acres.
The World War II-era Cape Cod houses on quarter-acre lots in Elizabeth Park, he said, are a rare breed in Cape Elizabeth.
“It’s the closest thing to affordable housing we have,” Tinsman said, pointing out that now even those are selling for $120,000 to $130,000.
Some houses are purchased only to be torn down, Tinsman said.
Many of these are larger houses, he said.
People who buy the smaller homes don’t typically rebuild because they can only afford to buy at the lower end of the price range, Tinsman said. But even then they
renovate and fix things up in the older houses they buy.
“We see a lot of improvements in homes when they change hands,” Tinsman said.
Thursday, September 27, 2001
Cape students respond to attacks
Published in the Current
At the September meeting of the Cape Elizabeth School Board, students and administrators spoke about the schools’ reactions to the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C.
The Sept. 20 meeting, postponed from Sept. 11 due to the attacks, also saw this year’s first presentations from the high school and middle school student representatives to the board.
David Greenwood and Christopher Roy, seniors at Cape High School, said they were proud of the way the high school students responded to the terrorism. Some seniors donated blood at local blood drives, while others, including Greenwood and Roy, painted the rock on Rt. 77. The students also are looking to create a memorial for the emergency workers killed during rescue attempts.
Greenwood and Roy also reported the new administration is popular, saying new principal Jeff Shedd received an 89 percent approval rating in a Period C survey in the cafeteria.
Middle school representatives Brianna Bowen and Lily Hoffman said middle school students also were working to benefit victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, by collecting donations, holding a bake sale and selling ribbons.
Bowen and Hoffman also said Sally Foster Gift Wrap sales will begin Sept. 21 and continue through Oct. 4 to raise funds for the sixth and seventh grade outdoor experience trips.
In other business, the School Board also:
Received information about the college admissions and college choices of the Cape High School class of 2001. Ninety percent of the 112-member class is pursuing post-secondary education, 94 percent of whom are attending four-year colleges. Eight percent of the class is seeking employment or working prior to further education, and two percent are entering the military.
Heard the superintendent’s and principals’ reports on the opening of school, which
included reference to how the schools handled the issue of telling students about the
Sept. 11 attacks, and the students’ efforts to help victims. Pond Cove students are holding a penny drive; middle school students are selling ribbons; over 60 high school students have signed up for a brand-new Volunteer Club.
Heard the superintendent’s report on future direction planning and the Cape Elizabeth Education Foundation.
Heard reports from the finance, policy and facilities subcommittees.
Approved new fall coaches for the middle school. Sarah Jordan will coach 8th grade
girls soccer. Tim Thompson will coach 7th grade girls soccer. Jeremy LaRose will coach 7th grade field hockey. Ben Putnam will be an assistant coach for 7th and 8th grade tennis.
Approved co-curricular fee positions throughout the district, including the senior
class advisor, high school student advisory council advisors, Bartleby advisor, and fall
art club advisor. Also appointed were the 7th grade representative to the student assistance team and several mentors for new teachers.
Received a request from teacher Andy Strout to defer his sabbatical for one year,
and a request from teacher Richard Rothlisberger to have a sabbatical for 2002-2003.
Noted that those who know men and women serving in the military should notify
board member Kevin Sweeney. A group of teachers and students has volunteered to
write them letters to keep their morale up.
The school board’s next meeting will be at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 9 in the town council chambers.
At the September meeting of the Cape Elizabeth School Board, students and administrators spoke about the schools’ reactions to the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C.
The Sept. 20 meeting, postponed from Sept. 11 due to the attacks, also saw this year’s first presentations from the high school and middle school student representatives to the board.
David Greenwood and Christopher Roy, seniors at Cape High School, said they were proud of the way the high school students responded to the terrorism. Some seniors donated blood at local blood drives, while others, including Greenwood and Roy, painted the rock on Rt. 77. The students also are looking to create a memorial for the emergency workers killed during rescue attempts.
Greenwood and Roy also reported the new administration is popular, saying new principal Jeff Shedd received an 89 percent approval rating in a Period C survey in the cafeteria.
Middle school representatives Brianna Bowen and Lily Hoffman said middle school students also were working to benefit victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, by collecting donations, holding a bake sale and selling ribbons.
Bowen and Hoffman also said Sally Foster Gift Wrap sales will begin Sept. 21 and continue through Oct. 4 to raise funds for the sixth and seventh grade outdoor experience trips.
In other business, the School Board also:
Received information about the college admissions and college choices of the Cape High School class of 2001. Ninety percent of the 112-member class is pursuing post-secondary education, 94 percent of whom are attending four-year colleges. Eight percent of the class is seeking employment or working prior to further education, and two percent are entering the military.
Heard the superintendent’s and principals’ reports on the opening of school, which
included reference to how the schools handled the issue of telling students about the
Sept. 11 attacks, and the students’ efforts to help victims. Pond Cove students are holding a penny drive; middle school students are selling ribbons; over 60 high school students have signed up for a brand-new Volunteer Club.
Heard the superintendent’s report on future direction planning and the Cape Elizabeth Education Foundation.
Heard reports from the finance, policy and facilities subcommittees.
Approved new fall coaches for the middle school. Sarah Jordan will coach 8th grade
girls soccer. Tim Thompson will coach 7th grade girls soccer. Jeremy LaRose will coach 7th grade field hockey. Ben Putnam will be an assistant coach for 7th and 8th grade tennis.
Approved co-curricular fee positions throughout the district, including the senior
class advisor, high school student advisory council advisors, Bartleby advisor, and fall
art club advisor. Also appointed were the 7th grade representative to the student assistance team and several mentors for new teachers.
Received a request from teacher Andy Strout to defer his sabbatical for one year,
and a request from teacher Richard Rothlisberger to have a sabbatical for 2002-2003.
Noted that those who know men and women serving in the military should notify
board member Kevin Sweeney. A group of teachers and students has volunteered to
write them letters to keep their morale up.
The school board’s next meeting will be at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 9 in the town council chambers.
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